Mathematician's Portrait: Professor Emeritus H.S.M. Coxeter

H.S.M. Coxeter was born and educated in England, but his professional
connections with North America began early. Shortly after finishing
his doctoral studies at Cambridge
University, and while he was a research
fellow there, he spent two years as a research visitor at
Princeton University.
In 1936 he joined the Faculty of the University of Toronto,
and despite numerous mathematical visits to centres around the world, has
remained here ever since.

Undoubtedly the world's best known geometer, Professor Coxeter has made
contributions of fundamental importance to the Theory of Polytopes, Non-Euclidean geometry, Discrete
Groups, and Combinatorial Theory, to name the areas of mathematical
research for which he is best known. Endowed with artistic gifts
himself, particularly in music, he gives to all mathematics that he
touches an aura of beauty. He is equally at home lecturing to
colleagues at an international research conference, or to gifted high
school mathematics students. Along with a large and growing volume of
research publications, his expository books and articles on geometry
and on recreational mathematics are very popular. He is living proof
that a great scholar can also be a great communicator.

Numerous honours have come to Professor Coxeter in his long and illustrious
career. He is a Fellow of both the
Royal Society of London and the
Royal Society of Canada. He is also a
Companion of the
Order of Canada,
the highest honour awarded by the Governor General of Canada for
lifetime achievement.
He has received an honorary degree from nine
universities and has been the star of attraction at several special
seminars dealing with his contributions to mathematics.

(Biography courtesy of the Mathematics Survival Guide, published
by the Department of Mathematics.)